ART
Filippo Brunelleschi, loggia of the Ospedale degli Innocenti 1419
Early Renaissance Brunelleschi received two important architectural commissions in Florence to construct a dome for the city's late medieval cathedral (fig. 14-19) and to design the Ospedale degli Innocenti (Hospital of the Innocents, fig. 16-30), a home for Florentine orphans and foundlings. The church housed a miracle-working Annunciation that attracted large numbers of pilgrims. With the construction of the new foundling hospital, the Madonna would now watch over infants as well, assisted by the guild, which supported the orphan- age with additional charitable donations. Most scholars regard Brunelleschi's Ospedale degli Innocenti as the first building to embody the new Renaissance architectural style.
Piero della Francesca, Resurrection, 1463-1465. Fresco
Early Renaissance Normally, the subjects chosen for city halls were scenes of battles, townscapes, or allegories of enlightened governance, as in Siena's Palazzo Pubblico (figs. 14-16A, 14-17, and 14-18). But the San Sepolcro council chose a religious subject instead. The town's name—Holy Sepulcher—derived from the legend that two 10th- century saints, Arcanus and Egidius, brought a fragment of Christ's tomb to the town from the Holy Land. the viewer witnesses the miracle of the risen Christ through the Corinthian columns of a classical portico (preserved only in part because the painting was trimmed during its installation in a new location). Piero chose a viewpoint corresponding to the viewer's position and depicted the architectural frame at a sharp angle from below.
Giotto di Bondone, Lamentation, Arena Chapel Padua, Italy, ca. 1305. Fresco,
Giotto painted Lamentation in several sections, each corresponding to one painting session, or giornata. Artists employing the buon fresco technique must complete each section before the plaster dries. A congregation mourns over the dead Savior just before his entombment. Mary cradles her son's body. Mary Magdalene looks solemnly at the wounds in Christ's feet. Saint John the Evangelist throws his arms back dramatically. Giotto arranged a shallow stage for the figures, bounded by a thick diagonal rock incline defining a horizontal ledge in the foreground. Though narrow, the ledge provides firm visual support for the figures. The rocky setting recalls the landscape of a 12th-century Byzantine mural (fig. 9-30) at Nerezi in Macedonia. Here, the steep slope leads the viewer's eye toward the picture's dramatic focal point at the lower left. the rocky ledge, with its single dead tree (the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which withered after Adam and Eve's original sin), concentrates the viewer's attention on the heads of Christ and his mother, which Giotto positioned dynamically off center.
Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, ca. 1503-1505. Oil on wood
High Renaissance Gherardini wears no jewelry and holds no attri- bute associated with wealth. Leonardo's concern was rather to paint a convincing representation of a specific individual, both in terms of appearance and personality. Mona Lisa sits quietly, her hands folded, her mouth forming a gentle smile, and her gaze directed at the viewer. Renaissance etiquette dictated that a woman should not look directly into a man's eyes. Leonardo's portrayal of this self- assured young woman without the trappings of power but engaging the audience psychologically is unprecedented and accounts in large part for the painting's unparalleled reputation today. The enduring appeal of Mona Lisa also derives from Leonardo's decision to set his subject against the backdrop of a mysterious unin- habited landscape. The painting is darker today than 500 years ago, and the colors are less vivid, but Mona Lisa still reveals Leonardo's fascination and skill with chiaroscuro and atmospheric perspective.
Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper ,ca. 1495-1498.Oil and tempera on plaster
High Renaissance Leonardo painted Jesus and his 12 disciples sitting at a long table placed par- allel to the picture plane in a simple, spacious room. The austere setting amplifies the painting's highly dramatic action. In the center, Jesus appears isolated from the disciples and in perfect repose, the calm eye of the swirling emotion around him. The central window at the back, whose curved pediment arches above his head, frames his figure. The pediment is the only curve in the architectural framework, and it serves here, along with the dif- fused light, as a halo. Jesus's head is the focal point of all converging perspective lines in the composition. Thus the still, psychological focus and cause of the action is also the perspective focus, as well as the center of the two-dimensional surface.
Michelangelo, David, 1501-1504
High Renaissance The importance of David as a civic symbol led the Florence Cathedral building committee to invite Michelangelo to work a great block of marble left over from an earlier aborted commis- sion into still another David for the Signoria. The colossal statue (fig. 17-13)—Florentines referred to it as "the Giant"—that Michelangelo created from that block forever assured his reputation as an extraordinary talent. Michelangelo chose to represent the young biblical warrior not after his victory, with Goliath's head at his feet (as Donatello and Verrocchio had done), but before the encounter, with David sternly watching his approaching foe.
Raphael, Philosophy (School of Athens), Stanza della Segnatura, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City, Rome, Italy, 1509-1511.
High renaissance the setting is not a "school" but a congregation of the great philosophers and scientists of the ancient world. Raphael depicted these luminaries, revered by Renaissance humanists, conversing and explaining their various theories and ideas. The setting is a vast hall covered by massive vaults that recall ancient Roman architecture, especially the much-admired coffered barrel vaults of the Basilica Nova (fig. 7-76). Colossal statues of Apollo and Athena, patron deities of the arts and of wisdom, oversee the interactions. Plato and Aristotle are the central figures around whom Raphael carefully arranged the others. Plato holds his book Timaeus and points to Heaven, the source of his inspiration, while Aristotle carries his book Nichomachean Ethics and gestures toward the earth, from which his observations of reality sprang.
Donato D'Angelo Bramante, Tempietto, San Pietro in Montorio, Rome, Italy, begun 1502.
High renaissance The building received its name because, to contemporaries, it had the look of a small ancient temple. "Little Temple" is, in fact, a perfect nickname for the structure, because the round temples of Roman Italy, including two in Rome—one in the Roman Forum and another on the east bank of the Tiber—and a third at nearby Tivoli (fig. 7-4), directly inspired Bramante's design. Bramante planned, although never executed, a circular colonnaded courtyard to frame the "temple." His intent was to coordinate the Tempietto and its sur- rounding portico by aligning the columns of the two structures.
Donatello, Gattamelata (equestrian statue of Erasmo da Narni), Piazza del Santo, Padua, Italy, ca. 1445-1453. Bronze
In 1443, he left Florence for northern Italy to accept a lucrative commission from the Republic of Venice to create a commemorative monument (fig. 16-15) in honor of the recently deceased Venetian condottiere Erasmo da Narni (1370-1443), nicknamed Gattamelata The statue stands on a lofty elliptical base, set apart from its surroundings, celebrating the Renaissance liberation of sculpture from architecture.
Claus Sluter, Well of Moses, France, 1396-1406. Asnières limestone,
International Style (Northern) Sluter's Well of Moses features statues of Moses and five other prophets (David, Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zachariah) ringing a base that once supported a 25-foot-tall group of Christ on the cross, the Virgin Mary, John the Evangelist, and Mary Magdalene. The Carthusians called the Well of Moses a fons vitae, a fountain of everlasting life. The blood of the crucified Christ symbolically flowed down over the grieving angels and Old Testament proph- ets, spilling into the well below, washing over Christ's prophetic predecessors and redeeming anyone who would drink water from the well.
.The Limbourg Brothers Les Tres Riches Houres du Duc de Berry 1423
International style (Northern) The full-page calendar pictures of Les Très Riches Heures are the most famous in the history of manuscript illumination. They represent the 12 months in terms of the associated seasonal tasks, alternating scenes of nobility and peasantry, and featuring the duke's relationship with his courtiers and peasants. Above each picture is a lunette in which the Lim- bourgs depicted the zodiac signs and the chariot of the sun as it makes its yearly cycle through the heavens. Beyond its function as a religious book, Les Très Riches Heures also furnishes a picture of life in the territory the duke ruled—a picture designed to flatter the Limbourgs' patron. The duke appears as magnanimous host, his head circled by the fire screen, almost halolike, behind him. His chamberlain stands next to him, urging the guests forward with the words
Bonaventura Berlinghieri, Saint Francis Altarpiece, 1235. Tempera on wood
Italo-Byzantine the altarpiece honors Saint Francis of Assisi, whose most important shrine (fig. 14-5A) was at Assisi itself. The Pescia altarpiece highlights the increasingly prominent role of religious orders in late medieval Italy Berlinghieri's altarpiece, painted only nine years after Francis's death, is the earliest securely dated repre- sentation of the saint. Flanking Francis are two angels, whose frontal poses, prominent halos, and lack of modeling reveal the Byzantine roots of Berlinghieri's style.
Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Prophets
Italo-Byzantine/ Proto renaissance (FLORENTINE) The composition and the gold background reveal the painter's reliance on Byzantine models Cimabue constructed a deeper space for the Madonna and the surrounding figures to inhabit than was common in Byzantine art. The overlapping bodies of the angels on each side of the throne and the half-length prophets who look outward or upward from beneath it reinforce the sense of depth Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Prophets
Duccio, Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints, principal panel of the front of the Maestà altarpiece, from Siena Cathedral, Siena, Italy, 1308-1311. Tempera and gold leaf on wood,
Italo-Byzantine/ Proto renaissance (FLORENTINE) The main panel on the front of the altarpiece represents the Virgin enthroned as queen of Heaven amid choruses of angels and saints. Duccio derived the composition's formality and symmetry, along with the figures and facial types of the principal angels and saints, from Byzantine tradition. But the artist relaxed the strict frontality and rigidity of the figures. They turn to each other in quiet conversation. Further, Duccio individualized the faces of the four patron saints of Siena (Ansanus, Savinus, Crescentius, and Victor) kneeling in the foreground, who perform their ceremonial gestures without stiffness. Similarly, he softened the usual Byzantine hard body outlines and drapery patterning. The folds of the garments, particularly those of the female saints at both ends of the panel, fall and curve loosely. This is a feature familiar in French Gothic works (fig. 13-37) and is a mark of the artistic dialogue between Italy and northern Europe in the 14th century.
Hubert and Jan van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece (open), ca. 1423-1432. Oil on wood
Late Gothic/ Early renaissance diplomat-retainer of Philip the Good, and his wife, Elisabeth Borluut (d. 1443), commissioned the polyptych as the centerpiece of the chapel that Vyd built in the Ghent church originally dedicated to Saint John the Baptist Two of the exterior panels (fig. 15-5) depict the donors. The husband and wife, in paired niches with Gothic tracery, kneel with their hands clasped in prayer. They gaze piously at two illusionistically rendered stone statues that reflect the innovative style of Claus Sluter (figs. 15-2 and 15-2A). The sculptures represent Ghent's patron saints, John the Baptist and John the Evangelist (who was probably also Vyd's patron saint). The Annunciation appears on the upper register, with a careful representation of a Flemish town outside the painted window of the center panel (compare figs. 15-1 and 15-4). In the uppermost arched panels, Jan depicted the Old Testament prophets Zachariah and Micah, along with sibyls, Greco-Roman mythological female prophets whose writings the Church inter- preted as prophecies of Christ.
Sandro Boticelli - The Birth of Venus - 1482
Tempera on canvas Early Renaissance Inspired by a poem by Angelo Poliziano, Botticelli painted Birthof Venus for the Medici between 1484 and 1486. At the left, Zephyrus, car- rying Chloris, blows Venus on a cockleshell to Cyprus. Botticelli's revival of the theme of the female nude, largely absent from medieval art, was consis- tent with the Neo-Platonic view that beholding physi- cal beauty prompts the contemplation of spiritual beauty. Awaiting the newborn goddess of love on her sacred island isthe nymph Pomona, who runs to meet Venus witha brocaded mantle. Her draperies undulate loosely in the gentle gusts of wind.
Simone Martini Annunciation, 1333 Tempera and gold leaf on wood, Proto-international style
The gold of his sumptuous gown signals that he has descended from Heaven to deliver his message. The Virgin, putting down her book of devotions, shrinks demurely from Gabriel's reverent bow—an appropriate act in the presence of royalty. Mary draws about her the deep-blue, golden-hemmed mantle, colors befitting the queen of Heaven.
Andrea del Verrocchio, Bartolommeo Colleoni ca. 1481-1495. Bronze
Verrocchio placed the statue of the bold equestrian general on a pedestal even taller than the one Donatello used for Gattamelata, elevating it so that viewers could see the dominating, aggressive figure from all approaches to the piazza The artist depicted both horse and rider with an exaggerated tautness—the animal's bulging muscles and the man's fiercely erect and rigid body together convey brute strength.
Giotto di Bondone, Madonna Enthroned (Ognissanti Madonna), from the Chiesa di Ognissanti (All Saints' Church), Florence, ca. 1310. Tempera and gold leaf on wood, 10' 8" × 6' 8". Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.
French Gothic sculpture (which Giotto may have seen but which was certainly familiar to him from the work of Giovanni Pisano, who had spent time in Paris) and ancient Roman art probably also contributed to Giotto's artistic education. Giotto displaced the Byzantine style in Italian painting and revived classical naturalism. His figures have substance, dimensionality, and bulk, and create the illusion that they could throw shadows.
Donatello, Saint George, niche on the north side of Or San Michele, Florence, Italy, ca. 1415-1418. Marble,
Early Renaissance SAINT GEORGE For the Or San Michele niche assigned to the guild of armorers and sword makers, Donatello created Saint George (fig. 16-6). The saintly knight stands proudly with his shield in front of him. He once held a bronze sword in his right hand and wore a bronze helmet on his head, both fashioned by the sponsoring guild. The statue continues the Gothic tradition of depicting warrior saints on church facades, as seen in the statue of Saint Theodore (fig. 13-19) on the westernmost jamb of the south transept portal of Chartres Cathedral, but here it has a civic role to play. Saint George stands in a defiant manner—ready to spring from his niche to defend Florence against attack from another Visconti or Ladislaus, his sword jutting out threateningly at all passersby. The saint's body is taut, and Donatello gave him a face filled with nervous energy. Directly below the statue's base is Donatello's marble relief (fig. 16-7) representing Saint George slaying a dragon to rescue a princess (see "Early Christian Saints," page 237). The relief marks a turning point in Renaissance sculpture. Even the landscapes in the baptistery competition reliefs (figs. 16-2 and 16-3) are mod- eled forms seen against a blank background. In Saint George and the Dragon, Donatello created an atmospheric effect by using incised lines. It is impossible to talk about a background plane in this work. The landscape recedes into distant space, and the depth of that space cannot be measured. The sculptor conceived the relief as a window onto an infinite vista. To create that effect, Donatello used a picto- rial device already known to the ancients—atmospheric perspective (see page 191). Artists (painters more frequently than sculptors) using atmospheric perspective (sometimes called aerial perspective) exploit the principle that the farther back an object is in space, the blurrier and less detailed it appears. In Donatello's Saint George and the Dragon, the foreground figures are much sharper than the land- scape elements in the background.
Filippo Brunelleschi, west facade of the Pazzi Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence, Italy, begun 1433.
Early Renaissance The Pazzi family erected this chapel as a gift to the Franciscan church of santa croce. It served as the monks' chapter house and is one of the first indepen- dent Renaissance central-plan buildings.
Masaccio, Tribute Money, Brancacci chapel, 1424-1427. Fresco
Early Renaissance The artist who personifies the innovative spirit of early- 15th-century Florentine painting was Tommaso di ser Giovanni di Mone Cassai, known as Masaccio (1401-1428). Although his presumed teacher, Masolino da Panicale (see "Italian Artists' Names," page 413), had worked in the International Gothic style, Masaccio broke sharply from the normal practice of imitating his master's style (see "Imitation and Emulation in Renaissance Art," page 474). He moved suddenly, within the short span of six years, into unexplored territory. Most art historians recognize no other painter in history to have contributed so much to the development of a new style as quickly as Masaccio, whose untimely death at age 27 cut short his brilliant career. Masaccio was the artistic descendant of Giotto (see page 418), whose calm, monumental style he carried further by introducing a whole new repertoire of representational devices that generations of Renaissance painters later studied and developed.
Andrea del Verrocchio, David, from the Palazzo della Signoria, Florence, Italy, ca. 1465-1470. Bronze
Early Renaissance reaffirms the Medicifamily's identification with the heroic biblicalking and with Florence. As in Donatello's version, Goliath's head lies at David's feet. He poses like a hunter with his kill. The easy balance of the weight and the lithe, still thinly adolescent musculature, with prominent veins, show how closely Verrocchio read the biblical text and how clearly he knew the psychology of brash young men. The Medici eventually sold Verrocchio's bronze David to the Florentine Republic for placement in the Palazzo della Signoria. After the expulsion of the Medici from Florence, civic officials appropriated Donatello's David for civic use and moved it to the city hall as well.
Donatello, David 1440 Early Renaissance
Early Renaissance With David, Donatello reinvented the classical nude. His subject, however, was not a Greco-Roman god, hero, or athlete but the youthful biblical slayer of Goliath who had become the symbol of the Florentine Republic—and therefore an ideal choice of subject for the residence of the most powerful family in Florence. The invoking of classical poses and formats also appealed to the Medici as humanists. Donatello's David possesses both the relaxed classical contrapposto stance and the proportions and sensuous beauty of the gods that Praxiteles portrayed in his statues (fig. 5-63). These qualities were, not surprisingly, absent from medieval figures—and they are also lacking, for different reasons, in Donatello's depiction of the aged Mary Magdalene. The contrast between the sculptor's David and his Penitent Mary Magdalene demonstrates the extraordinary versatility of this Florentine master.
Andrea Mantegna, Foreshortened Christ (Lamen tation over the Dead Christ),ca. 1500. Tempera on canvas
Early Renaissance this painting seems to be a strikingly realistic study in foreshortening. Careful examination, however, reveals that Mantegna reduced the size of Christ's feet, which, as he surely knew, would cover much of the body if properly represented according to the rules of perspective, in which the closest objects, people, or body parts are the largest. Thus, tempering naturalism with artistic license, Mantegna presented both a harrowing study of a strongly foreshortened cadaver and an intensely poignant depiction of a biblical tragedy
Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration of the Magi, 1423, International Style
Gentile painted Adoration of the Magi (fig. 16-17) as the altarpiece for the family The altarpiece, with its elaborate gilded Gothic frame, is testimony to the patron's lavish tastes. So too is the painting itself, with its gorgeous surface and sumptuously costumed kings, courtiers, captains, and retainers entile portrayed all these elements in a rainbow of color with extensive use of gold. The painting presents all the pomp and ceremony of chivalric etiquette in a religious scene centered on the Madonna and Child. Although the style is fundamentally International Gothic, Gentile inserted striking naturalistic details. For example, the art- ist depicted animals from a variety of angles and foreshortened the forms convincingly, most notably the horse at the far right seen in a three-quarter rear view.
Jan van Eyck, Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife, 1434. Oil on wood, 2' 9" × 1' 10 12". National Gallery, London.
Late Gothic/ early renaissance Jan depicted the Lucca financier (who had established himself in Bruges as an agent of the Medici family) in his home. Arnolfini holds the hand of his second wife, whose name is not known. That much is certain, but the purpose and meaning of the double portrait remain the subject of considerable debate. According to the traditional interpretation of the painting, Jan recorded the couple taking their marriage vows. As in the Mérode Altarpiece (fig. 15-4), almost every object portrayed carries meaning. For example, the little dog symbolizes fidelity (the common canine name Fido originated from the Latin fidere, "to trust"). The finial (crowning ornament) of the marriage bed at the right is a tiny statue of Saint Margaret, patron saint of childbirth. (The bride is not yet pregnant, although the fashionable costume she wears makes her appear so.) From the finial hangs a whisk broom, symbolic of domestic care. Indeed, even the placement of the two figures in the room is meaningful. The woman stands near the bed and well into the room, whereas the man stands near the open window, symbolic of the outside world. an important aspect of the painting is that the artist functions as a witness to whatever event is taking place. In the background, between the two figures, is a convex mirror (complete with its spatial distortion, brilliantly recorded), in which Jan depicted not only the principals, Arnolfini and his wife, but also two persons who look into the room through the door.
Rogier van der Weyden, Deposition, 1435
Late Gothic/Early renaissance the center panel of a triptych commissioned by the archers' guild of Louvain for the church of Notre-Dame hors-les- murs Rogier compressed the figures and action onto a shallow stage with a golden back wall, imitating the large sculptured shrines so popular in the 15th century The device admirably served his purpose of expressing maximum action within a limited space, but the setting of the crucifixion in a box is unrealistic, as is the size of the cross, the arms of which are not wide enough for Jesus's hands to have been nailed to them.
Masaccio, Holy Trinity, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy, ca. 1424-1427. Fresco
Masaccio painted the composition on two levels of unequal height. Above, in a barrel-vaulted chapel reminiscent of a Roman triumphal arch (figs. 7-40 and 7-44A; compare fig. 16-49A), the Vir- gin Mary and Saint John appear on either side of the crucified Christ. (Mary, unlike in almost all other representations of the crucifixion, appears as an older woman, her true age at the time of her adult son's death.) God the Father emerges from behind Christ, supporting the arms of the cross and presenting his son to the worshiper as a devotional object. Christ's blood runs down the cross onto the painted ledge below—a reference to the symbolic blood of the wine of the Eucharist on the church's altar. The dove of the Holy Spirit hovers between God's head and Christ's head.
Michelangelo Buonarroti, Moses, from the tomb of Pope Julius II, Rome, Italy, ca. 1513-1515. Marble,
Moses in its final comparatively paltry set- ting does not convey the impact originally intended. The horns on Moses's head were a convention in Christian art (based on a mistranslation of the Hebrew word for "rays") and helped Renaissance viewers identify the prophet Michelangelo used the device of the turned head, in this case to concentrate the expression of awful wrath stir- ring in the prophet's mighty frame and eyes. Moses's muscles bulge, his veins swell, and his great legs seem to begin slowly to move. Not since Hellenistic times (figs. 5-85 and 5-86) had a sculptor imbued a seated figure with so much torsion and emotionalism.
